Lunar Trailblazer Lost: NASA confirmed it has formally ended the Lunar Trailblazer mission after months of silence from the small lunar orbiter nasa.gov. Launched as a low-cost attempt to map water on the Moon, the cubesat fell mute a day after its Feb. 26 liftoff and drifted off-course. “Despite extensive efforts, mission operators were unable to establish two-way communications after losing contact with the spacecraft the day following its launch,” NASA stated nasa.gov. Lacking telemetry, the team couldn’t fire thrusters to keep the craft on track nasa.gov. The mission, officially declared lost on July 31, dealt another blow to NASA’s high-risk, low-cost planetary program. Nicky Fox, NASA’s science chief, defended the effort as a valuable learning experience: “At NASA, we undertake high-risk, high-reward missions like Lunar Trailblazer to find revolutionary ways of doing new science…While it was not the outcome we had hoped for, mission experiences like Lunar Trailblazer help us to learn and reduce the risk for future low-cost small satellites…Thank you to the Lunar Trailblazer team for their dedication…through to the end” nasa.gov. The ~$94 million mission was meant to map lunar ice with two novel instruments, which scientists hope to repurpose for future orbiters nasa.gov nasa.gov. JPL
